Hands on workshop on getting started with OpenMRS for non-programmers

@eeggert1 and I are going to be hosting a “getting started with OpenMRS” hands on workshop at Johns Hopkins and we’re hoping to cover the following split over two 2 hour sessions:

Installation instructions to set up the standalone of OpenMRS 2.0 will be sent out in advance to the participants.

Day 1:

  1. Intro to openMRS, its tech stack and its data model
  2. System installation (if anyone had any problems)
  3. Creation of user/provider types, managing privileges 4.Concepts: What are they and how to make concepts
  4. Creating a form using the HTML forms module Homework: Create your own form

Day 2: 6. Installing modules - how to 7. Getting started with creating your own module [“hello world”] 8. How to get plugged into the community - Talk, Wiki, IRC. Homework: Creating a module which includes Dashboard extension, a fragment and a page

The audience is mainly going to be non-programmers.

Feedback on the session content and resources to conduct it would be highly appreciated!!!

@dkayiwa, @raff: I liked the session you guys conducted on extending and customizing OpenMRS at the summit last year in Singapore…any chance you could share those slides with us? Thanks!

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Love to hear the details on this or how it works out!

Chris

@ngoel2 if you have a good internet connection consider introducing the SDK which for beginners is the easiest way to get an installation up and running.

@ngoel2. Good stuff… kindly keep us posted

@ngoel2 and @eeggert1 great to hear about the initiative!

Unfortunately, I don’t have any materials from the session in Singapore.

I strongly support what @ssmusoke said about using the latest SDK.

@ngoel2 some suggestions to your workshop topics

Day 1:

  1. Intro to openMRS, its tech stack and building blocks:
  • Patients
  • Users/Providers
  • Concepts
  • Visits/Encounters/Observations
  • Modules
  1. System installation using SDK
  2. Creation of user/provider types, managing privileges
  3. Concepts: Using CIEL and creating custom concepts (also why to avoid doing this)
  4. Creating a form using the HTML form entry module
  • Create a form
  • Configure the form using Form metadata
  • Using the form to enter data for a visit Homework: Create your own form

Day 2: 6. Installing and upgrading modules 7. Getting started with creating your own module [“hello world”] - using SDK 8. How to get plugged into the community - Talk, Wiki, IRC

Homework: Creating a module which includes Home Page extension, a fragment and a page

Thanks @ssmusoke! We’ll definitely use the SDK.

@ngoel2 and @eeggert1 : Awesome!. Thank you for your work. Please do keep us in the loop even after the event.

@ngoel2 Have you been able to prepare any workshop materials on this? I would love to review them with the aim of doing a couple of similar workshop in Kampala, to help the local community get up to speed and start supporting the national implementation.

Not yet, but we’ll prepare something a bit closer to the date. I’ll definitely share and upload them here. I can also check with the school to see if we can webcast the workshop if anyone wants to attend virtually. Would that be of interest to you? Neha Goel

@ngoel2 I can share the webcast to those who want to attend. I am interested in the notes so that I can leaverage your work to help others locally.

What date are you looking at having this workshop?

@ngoel2 Just checking in

@ngoel2 a potential broadcast would be great we are also trying to put together teaching materials ( it is part of our organizational plan for this year–and we haven’t made much progress); anything that you can share would be greatly appreciated. Are your going to have an overview on clinical informatics at the beginning? that might help set the stage for why this work is so important. Are you going to record what you do?

@janflowers- this might help us with our educational material planning .

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Agree, it would be worth looking at the materials and seeing what would be good generally, and what we could add to it.

@ngoel2 Just wanted to ask if you can share your workshop materials, even if in draft form, as it would be a good basis to build a community resource round them. I am planning to run a couple of workshops before and during the OpenMRS conference in December, as part of community outreach activities, hence the constant pinging.

@ngoel2 Please can you share your workshop materials as I am holding a similar one this Thursday in Kampala. Thanks in advance

@ngoel2, can you share your decks? they were great when i sat in on some of your training! thanks @mcropp2019 can also use these as we try to improve our educational materials!

@ssmusoke, @terry:

We recorded the intro session. The recording can be accessed here: https://connect.johnshopkins.edu/p90p1ug59k4/

I haven’t had a chance to edit it yet - how useful would you say it would be if we were to edit it?

I used a modified version of a ppt that was made at the OpenMRS summit - I believe I found it on SlideShare - I certainly can’t take credit for it. I’ve uploaded it here

We also made a “for dummies” version of the install instructions (some steps on the Wiki post assume a certain level of CS competence and not all attendees at our workshop had a programming background): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tj-20ftLSwt43KYFgd6S07mlfZVTugVT_iELv74geAo/edit?usp=sharing

Here’s an outline of the workshop syllabus:

OpenMRS is a widely used opensource medical record system, this two-day workshop is intended to be a hands-on experience to get introduced to OpenMRS, set up an instance of OpenMRS and customize it. Any one is welcome, some basic background in programming would be useful however it is not required.

Day 1, Oct 20th, 3 - 5 pm:

  1. Intro to OpenMRS, its tech stack and its data model
  2. System installation (if anyone had any problems)
  3. Creation of user/provider types (eg: doctor, nurse, community health worker), managing privileges
  4. Concepts: What are they and how to make concepts
  5. Creating a form using the HTML forms module Do it yourself: Create your own form

Day 2, Oct 27th, 3 - 5 pm:

  1. What is a module in OpenMRS? Installing modules - how to
  2. Getting started with creating your own module [“hello world”]
  3. Further resources and how to get plugged into the OpenMRS community - Talk, Wiki, IRC. Do it yourself: Creating a module which includes Dashboard extension, a fragment and a page

Installation instructions to set up the standalone of OpenMRS 2.0 will be sent out in advance to the participants. In order to get the most out of the workshop, participants are expected to come in with their system set up.

I hope this helps!

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